Implementing Sustainability Strategies for the Abbe Museum’s Collections Environment

FAIN: PF-50351-13

Abbe Museum (Bar Harbor, ME 04609-1782)
Julia Clark (Project Director: December 2012 to July 2016)

The implementation of environmental improvements, consisting of upgrades to the climate control and lighting systems, for a museum that collects, preserves, and exhibits ethnographic and historic material relating to the four tribes of central Maine, collectively known as the Wabanaki. The collections, dating from 12,000 years ago to the present, include archaeological materials from sites around the state, works of contemporary Native American artists, and the library and archival collection of the museum's founder, Dr. Robert Abbe.

The Abbe Museum requests a one-year, $305,200 grant award in support of its Implementing Sustainability Strategies for the Abbe Museum’s Collections Environment project. The goal of the project is to implement three recommendations presented in the NEH-funded Environmental Improvements Report submitted by Watson & Henry Associates and Tuckerbrook Conservation in January 2012. Specifically, a grant award would fund replacement/improvement of the Abbe Museum’s exhibit lighting system, dehumidification system, and chiller in order to meet environmental preservation targets as well as implement economically and environmentally sustainable approaches to the building environment.